By Oren Dorell and Jack Gillum
USA TODAY
A cyber attack by WikiLeaks supporters against websites of visa and MasterCard foreshadows a new generation of increasingly more dangerous assault on Internet, experts in security say.
"This will serve to inspire other villains," said Rob Rachwald de Imperva, an Internet security company. "Terrorists are finding inspiration for this.
MasterCard and visa said account holders were not at risk and who can use their card credit safely for the day.
Wednesday attacks were part of a recent series by supporters and the enemies of the WikiLeaks says Gunter Ollmann Damballa Internet security firm.
"It's like a Wild West shoot-out... and we had these different organizations are caught between the lights", he said.
Last week, WikiLeaks servers were reversed offline by angry people its diplomatic and military disclosure said reviews could interfere with the Government and the same life risk, he said.
Attacks on Wednesday were led by "hacktivist" groups including the anonymous and recovery operation. They have distributed software that wetlands website for thousands of participants. He has coordinated action on Twitter.
Retrieval operation has attacked organizations that its participants believe participate in censorship of the Internet, including recording and media companies who were trying to shut down illegal file-sharing sites tells Imperva Noa Bar Yosef.
Anonymous has attacked the Australian Government sites to protest a firewall across the country who inspects incoming threats Internet traffic.
Internet-security experts say that Wednesday should be a wakeup call to act to larger and more damaging attacks.
"We have a problem of our information networks that are under constant attack," said Larry Clinton, President of the Alliance security Internet in Arlington, va.
"We know tons on how to secure these systems", he said, and more attacks could be managed if businesses were more proactive about security.
USA TODAY